How do the scientists choose where to drill?

How do the scientists choose where to drill?

We had targeted these first two sites (U1386 and U1387) on one of the world’s best known giant elongate drifts that had never yet been drilled – the Faro Drift. This drift is about 100 km long, up to 20 km wide and over 500 m thick, with an estimated volume of around 1 billion cubic metres of sediment. The contourites deposited on the Faro Drift for about the last 5 million years of Earth history, hold the very best signal of Mediterranean Outflow Water (MOW) through the Gibraltar gateway, and a clear record of its influence on the oceanography and climate of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Expedition 339 co-chief scientists Prof. Dorrik Stow and Prof. Javier Hernández-Molina (and many other scientists) proposed several drilling sites based on scientific data collected previously. Especially important were the multibeam bathymetry data and a dense network of existing high-resolution seismic reflection profiles. The marine seismic reflection data were particularly important because they permited to produce images of the rock layers below Earth’s surface.